[size=13pt]How Govt Wastes Nigeria’s Wealth - El Rufai[/size]


Former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, yesterday decried growing and outrageous cost of governance without meaningful impact on development and empowerment of the populace.

He solicited the assistance of the media in the delivery of dividends of democracy. The former boss of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) gave the charge at the opening of the seventh biennial conference of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), in Benin, Edo State capital.

He noted that the ‘entire oil earnings for the year cannot pay the salaries and allowances of politicians and public sector workers and their overheads such as tea, coffee, travel and estacode’.
The former minister, who was arrested and detained in July, this year for alleged inflammatory talks, gave detailed insight into how government at all tiers squandered collective wealth of the people on few elected and public officials.

While indicting the three arms of government of sheer profligacy, el-Rufai hit the present administration for its wastage and growing budgetary expenditure without commensurate development.
In his paper entitled; ‘Perspectives on the cost of governance in a democracy’, El-Rufai stated that Nigeria remains the only developing country where annual expenditure on general administration ranges from 55 per cent to as much as 75 per cent of the budget.

“The rich countries spend an average of 10 per cent of their budgets and/or GDP on the general administration of their countries. China and India have the largest bureaucracies in the world. But their average annual expenditure on general administration is only about 12 per cent of GDP, and that is considered high, but at least the results are showing - these are the fastest growing economies in the world that have lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the last decade.

Giving a sectoral analysis of how Nigeria’s wealth is cornered by its officials and cronies, the former minister disclosed that a whopping N49.9 billion will be used to run each of the 49 line Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) outlined in the 2011 Appropriation Act; N150 billion to fund the 469 members of the federal legislature and their support staff for the year while upkeep of judges along with their support staff comes to about N73 million on yearly basis.

“Each ministry has at least one minister -some have two or three, with a permanent secretary, and on average eight directors. The ministers and permanent secretaries have personal assistants, special assistants and special advisers. Each of these expects to drive a Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) or two to work, complete with police orderlies and other file carriers. Then, they will need houses, furniture and running costs of the vehicles and utilities. The costs of all these somehow find their way into the overheads budget of the ministries, and makes a complete nonsense of the monetization policy we implemented in 2004.

“Up until December 2006, there were 31 cabinet-level ministries including the FCT Administration and about 42 ministers. The reforms of 2006 led to the merger of the ministries of Petroleum and Power into a single Energy Ministry, Water Resources and Agriculture into a single Agriculture Ministry, commerce with industry, the addition to steel development to the mandate of the Solid Minerals Ministry, the abolition of the ministries of Police Affairs, Communication, and Co-operation and Integration in Africa into larger ministries, works into transportation, and so on.

“This reduced the number of cabinet level MDAs to 21, but without a significant reduction in the number of ministers. The Yar’Adua and Jonathan administrations reversed these reforms, and now, we have some 30 ministries housing between 42 and 48 ministers.

“We elect a total of 360 members to the House of Representatives and 109 Senators to make laws and enhance good governance by checking and balancing the excesses of the executive arm of government. For this privilege, the 469 members of the federal legislature and their support staff at the National Assembly (NASS) will spend N150 billion this year. From the NASS website, it is evident that they only passed eight bills as at the end of May 2011, and have been on recess for 43 days out of the first 100 days of this administration.

“So, assuming that they manage to pass another seven bills before the end of this year, it would cost the Nigerian citizen an average of about 10 billion naira to pass a single bill. This implies that to pass the 2011 budget (which allocated N150 billion to NASS), we paid 10 billion naira. An even more interesting statistics is the cost of maintaining every legislator every year. It works out to a princely N320 million per legislator per annum. At this rate, every four-year stint at NASS works out at N1.28 billion per legislator.

“The judiciary seems equally determined not to be outdone. In this year’s budget, apart from the nearly 20 billion naira allocated to the Federal Ministry of Justice, the National Judicial Council will receive 95 billion naira. If we compute that the Supreme Court has 22 Judges; Court of Appeal 67; Federal High Court 58; FCT High Court 38 and the National Industrial Court 13, an average of 30 High Court judges per state gives a total of about 1,300 puisne judges nationwide. Following the same statistical analysis, the upkeep of these judges along with their support staff every year comes to a about N73 million per annum per judge”, El-Rufai stated.

He also picked hole in the budgetary allocation of government, which he said was not in tandem with the needs and aspirations of Nigerians. “Another interesting observation is the fact that government says the problem of power shortage will be a priority, yet the Ministry of Power only got N91 billion as total appropriation, while the security sector (Military, Police, Internal Affairs, National Security Agency, Amnesty, Pensions, Police Reform, etc.) got a mind-boggling N1,592 billion.

“This amount is over 35 per cent of the entire budget. In other words, though Nigerians have never felt so insecure, the NSA, Internal Affairs, Police and Defence combined will be spending N4.36 billion per day on our behalf! This does not include the security votes in ministries, and the 36 states. Even local government chairmen now have security votes”, he added.

The former minister, therefore urged the media to wake up to its traditional role by sensitizing the populace on their rights, saying the people have not found their voice but rather ‘polarised on primordial ethno-religious sentiments’.
“We should hold accountable those who hold political offices on our behalf, nonetheless the inadequacies in our electoral system. They should be our servants rather than being our ‘Lords’ as they currently arrogate to themselves and flagrantly display at all available fora. Until the people muster the courage to manifestly use the power, which the tenets of democracy vest in them, it is doubtful if the continually rising cost of governance would impact positively on the wellbeing of the populace.

“Those that impose the outrageous system of governance wherein the spiraling costs translate into less investment, poor services and abject poverty for the majority of the people are drawn across the 774 local governments. This, in my candid opinion, is where the media’s role in educating and mobilizing the people to action appropriately lies. But do we have a mass media that is neither cowed nor bought over? That is a question that you, ladies and gentlemen can answer honestly.”, el-Rufai said.


http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/newsonthehour/2011/sept/23/newsbreak-23-09-2011-001.html

Every paragraph of this article, apart from probably the first two, is worth reading. I don't even know the one to reference. Every one is important. These are the questions we need to start asking these so-called leaders that are running Nigeria aground. These are cold facts!

I expect that responses to this article would be devoid of political, religious and tribal slurs/insults just like the article itself.

In his paper entitled; ‘Perspectives on the cost of governance in a democracy’, El-Rufai stated that Nigeria remains the only developing country where annual expenditure on general administration ranges from 55 per cent to as much as 75 per cent of the budget.

“The rich countries spend an average of 10 per cent of their budgets and/or GDP on the general administration of their countries. China and India have the largest bureaucracies in the world. But their average annual expenditure on general administration is only about 12 per cent of GDP, and that is considered high, but at least the results are showing - these are the fastest growing economies in the world that have lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the last decade.

Given the foregoing, surely an accurate title for this thread is: "How Govt steals Nigeria's wealth"

Everything that begats a failed state is what we revel on in this nation.

Rather than fix d problem, small minds will have d man arrested
Bakare defined idiots from Wikipedia & how it fits Nig.

Soon you will hear" If a northernan was in power, would El Rufai ask this questions"?

This is it. This is the main issue we need to start discussing in Nigeria not all the diversionaries the owners of Nigeria would have us fight about. Whosoever says this guy is not making sense does not deserve to see better days!!!. He has always made sense to me. He is the kind of man we need at the helm of affairs in Nigeria, rather most Nigerian's brains have been wired to always look for ethno-religious dimension to every issue. So sad but true.

El Rufai, may God continue to bless you. I know someday we will get there. I just read in the news now that opposition won election in Zambia. We will get our freedom from the PDP bastards soonest.

Its only in a country like nigeria dt d likes of el rufai wd b walkin d streets free and playin on peoples sentiments,he shd go and account for his stewardshio at fct 1st

doctokwus:

Its only in a country like nigeria dt d likes of el rufai wd b walkin d streets free and [b]playin on peoples sentiments,[/b]he shd go and account for his stewardshio at fct 1st

Stop attacking the man by attempting to distract us from the germane issues he has raised.  Why are Nigerians like this?  Is this all you can say about these disturbing issues? Please underline where he tried to play on people's sentiments.

I'm not saying he shouldn't defend himself but first of all, address these critical, Nigeria-threatening issues.

Thanks Mallam for revealing the waste The Retardeen and his PDP Cohorts are subjecting Nigeria to.

@pukkah,what has changd btw d obasanjo govt under whc el rufai was d fct ministert and now.D expenditure pattern has bn d same.D country is corrupt and govt is wasteful,no 1 is disputing dese facts,but y didnt he raise dese concerns while he was dere as a minister and enjoyin d same wastefulness he's now complaining of?Now hes out,its convenient for him to play hollier dan thou while his ass is full of bullshit,i cannot allow d likes of el rufai lecture me on gud govt practices wen he didnt practice any while he was neck deep in it,he shd go and lecture d almajiris in his homestate,he is nothing but a double speaking mallam!

These are hard facts!

Unfortunately, this is beyond GEJ or any other politician for that matter, yet things cannot continue like this.

According to our finance minister, in 4 years time she would only manage to reduce the cost of running government by 4%.

If something drastic doesn't happen soon, then I will say we are doomed as a Nation.

doctokwus:

@pukkah,what has changd btw d obasanjo govt under whc el rufai was d fct ministert and now.D expenditure pattern has bn d same.D country is corrupt and govt is wasteful,no 1 is disputing dese facts,but y didnt he raise dese concerns while he was dere as a minister and enjoyin d same wastefulness he's now complaining of?Now hes out,its convenient for him to play hollier dan thou while his Bottom is full of bullshit,i cannot allow d likes of el rufai lecture me on gud govt practices wen he didnt practice any while he was neck deep in it,he shd go and lecture d almajiris in his homestate,he is nothing but a double speaking mallam!

Whether or not he's double-speaking is not the issue; this is even arguable. The government of the day should not spare him if he was found to be corrupt or wasteful when he was in government.

However, the question is: are these figures correct? If yes, do you think the figures are healthy for us as a country? Can you controvert any of the things he said? What can we do to stop the profligacy? If we stop it, is it to the personal benefit of El-Rufai? So why not, for now, leave the messenger and focus on this sensible message?

OAM4J:

These are hard facts?

U[b]nfortunately, this is beyond GEJ or any other politician for that matter[/b], yet things cannot continue like this.

According to our finance minister, in 4 years time she would only manage to reduce the cost of running government by 4%.

If something drastic doesn't happen soon, then I will say we are doomed as a Nation.

I humbly disagree with that. it only seems beyond him because he doesn't have the Balls and courage to do what is necessary. For crying out loud, he is the President.

@pukkah,like wen i argue wt matured minds.Yes dese figures ar unhealthy,yes govt spending has to b checkd,yes we most devote more to capital dan recurrent expenditure,but nothing hurts more wen d same people dt championed proliflagracy are now preaching against it jst bc dey are no longer beneficiaries.El rufai has a pendin case in court,if hes acquitted of all charges,gud for him,but not bc he's now on d opposing side he shd now try to mke himself luk good and exonerate himself frm d rot we find ourselves in now.Evn bac in his days at d BPE,dere av bn controversies of his handling of affairs den.Am jst not comfortable him coming to preach now,trying to weep up sentiments against d govt in power

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Did u read this part:

“Up until December 2006, there were 31 cabinet-level ministries including the FCT Administration and about 42 ministers. The reforms of 2006 led to the merger of the ministries of Petroleum and Power into a single Energy Ministry, Water Resources and Agriculture into a single Agriculture Ministry, commerce with industry, the addition to steel development to the mandate of the Solid Minerals Ministry, the abolition of the ministries of Police Affairs, Communication, and Co-operation and Integration in Africa into larger ministries, works into transportation, and so on.

“This reduced the number of cabinet level MDAs to 21, but without a significant reduction in the number of ministers. The Yar’Adua and Jonathan administrations reversed these reforms, and now, we have some 30 ministries housing between 42 and 48 ministers.

If the message is true, embrace it and champion for what is right. How nice would it had been if the Yaradua/GEJ administration had continued in pruning down all these ministries and MDA, instead the opposite was the case. Little or nothing can be done for the past now, lets channel all our efforts for the future.

If you say GEJ is not part of those stealing Nigeria blind, then you are lying through your teeth. Nigeria is doomed seriously.

Demdem:

I humbly disagree with that. it only seems beyond him because he doesn't have the Balls and courage to do what is necessary. For crying out loud, he is the President.

Yes I agree he is the president and a lot rest on his shoulder, but even if he has the will and the balls to attempt these changes, I do not see the 469 members of the legislature working with him. This constitution we are operating 1st need to be thrown into the bin to start with and we need to seriously look into our system of government again, then we can deal with the operators of this system.

Majority of Nigerians need to stand up everywhere and shout 'enough is enough' to start with.

True talk

I dont think the country would survive the mess it's in.

@OAM4J
I honestly feel its because he doesnt have the desire to do such. it goes beyond you saying it. Fine, the NASS is there to tackle him but that will only be for the legislative arm and not the executive arm. whatever he wants to do with the executive to optimize productivity will definitely be welcome.
From what El-Rufai said, the OBJ administration started this pruning down but subsequent govts have been reversing it since taking us back to square 1. its really painful.

OAM4J:

Majority of Nigerians need to stand up everywhere and shout 'enough is enough' to start with.

Exactly! If not, I hope these prodigal leaders will spend this country to its death.

doctokwus:

@pukkah,like wen i argue wt matured minds.Yes dese figures ar unhealthy,yes govt spending has to b checkd,yes we most devote more to capital dan recurrent expenditure,but nothing hurts more wen d same people dt championed proliflagracy are now preaching against it jst bc dey are no longer beneficiaries.El rufai has a pendin case in court,if hes acquitted of all charges,gud for him,but not bc he's now on d opposing side he shd now try to mke himself luk good and exonerate himself frm d rot we find ourselves in now.Evn bac in his days at d BPE,dere av bn controversies of his handling of affairs den.Am jst not comfortable him coming to preach now,trying to weep up sentiments against d govt in power

Let me give you an example. I'm not a fan of Babangida but I defended his question to OBJ about the $16billion that was spent on power because these are the kind of probing, incisive and discomforting questions we should be asking all those in public offices.

Even if El-Rufai wrote this article from prison after being convicted of a corrupt act, does it reduce the weight of the message?  How come we do not seem to show indignation about the way these politicians spend our money?  Surprisingly, these same Nigerians would troop to the church service of a former armed robber giving the excuse that he's now repented and  a changed man.  How come this does not apply to El-Rufai?

Until most people start putting these greedy and wicked leaders in the spotlight, there would be no incentive for them to stop the prodigalism and extravagance and because of that, development in Nigeria will always be a pipe dream. Enough is enough!

@Demdem

I get your point, I was looking at an holistic solution. Yeah a serious attempt at reducing this high cost of governance wont be bad too, but I doubt Mr president is also thinking along that line judging from the comments of Madam Iweala.

doctokwus:

@pukkah,what has changd btw d obasanjo govt under whc el rufai was d fct ministert and now.D expenditure pattern has bn d same.D country is corrupt and govt is wasteful,no 1 is disputing dese facts,but y didnt he raise dese concerns while he was dere as a minister and enjoyin d same wastefulness he's now complaining of?Now hes out,its convenient for him to play hollier dan thou while his Bottom is full of bullshit,i cannot allow d likes of el rufai lecture me on gud govt practices wen he didnt practice any while he was neck deep in it,he shd go and lecture d almajiris in his homestate,he is nothing but a double speaking mallam!

As someone that was once in power, with a pending court case, don't you think it takes courage to say what he's saying? How many of those that were in government with him are doing this?

Pukkah:

Exactly!  If not, I hope these prodigal leaders will spend this country to its death.

Unfortunately i doubt anything will change till the whole system collapse for as long as majority of Nigeria only think along ethnic/region divides, many people keep thinking we should leave GEJ and not criticize him because he is a man from our region. Some people never see and will never see anything wrong with GEJ because he is the lucky man from the south.

The question I think we need to ask ourselves is, what benefits has the North received for having their men in power for more than 35 years? Or what development went to Ogun state (lets not even talk of the whole SW or the entire South) for having Obj in power?

When we ought to be demanding for good governance, these people are using us to fight along ethnic/zone/region divides while they rob us dead, unfortunately many of us cannot see the big picture, we are the big looser for it.

Doctokwus is more concerned about the man than about the message, if or when el rufai decided to contest, you can protest by not voting form him, until then, what he is saying is valid, if IBB says the same thing, we should go listen and go after the leaders, let our present crop of leaders go after the former leaders who looted us.

It mayb courage,it may also b appealing to sentiments,correct me if am wrong,but nigeria is one country where people are swayed by religion,tribe and language;evn well educated pple av fallen pray to dese primordial interests.I jst cannot get it away frm my mind dt d mallam dosnt av d greater nigerian interest at heart wen dese figures he's reeling out.Its jst d way
i c it,i am not disputing d nid to change d way tins ar done,partcularly @d govt level.

From the NASS website, it is evident that they only passed eight bills as at the end of May 2011, and have been on recess for 43 days out of the first 100 days of this administration.

“So, assuming that they manage to pass another seven bills before the end of this year, it would cost the Nigerian citizen an average of about 10 billion naira to pass a single bill. This implies that to pass the 2011 budget (which allocated N150 billion to NASS), we paid 10 billion naira. An even more interesting statistics is the cost of maintaining every legislator every year. It works out to a princely N320 million per legislator per annum. At this rate, every four-year stint at NASS works out at N1.28 billion per legislator.

It's known that NASS are there doing nothing. They are just there receiving salaries and allowances. Even fresh graduates will do better than those people.

They are too many. 2 senators from each state are enough. Like 80 members of house of rep are also enough. They are just wasting our money. They never make sure that the budget was implemented. Waste of money people.

El-Rufai should stop pontificating and confess to his atrocities during his time as FCT minister. We would forgive him and listen to his already tired dribble about corruption in the FGN which he was part of and continues to 'enjoy' its benefits!

ow11:

El-Rufai should stop pontificating and confess to his atrocities during his time as FCT minister. We would forgive him and listen to his already tired dribble about corruption in the FGN which he was part of and continues to 'enjoy' its benefit

Tank u

ow11:

El-Rufai should stop pontificating and confess to his atrocities during his time as FCT minister. We would forgive him and listen to his already tired dribble about corruption in the FGN which he was part of and continues to 'enjoy' its benefits!

Your argument is fallacious.  It is invalid because it stands on 'Tu quo que' fallacy.  Permit me to quote what I had cause to write on another thread sometime ago.

Pukkah:

All the people abusing and insulting Buhari, without addressing the issues he raised, are guilty of a 'Tu quoque' fallacy or argument.  

A 'Tu quoque' (meaning 'you, too' or 'you, also') argument tries to say that a criticism or opposition also applies to the person making it.  It focuses on the person himself rather than on the argument that he is making or the issues he is raising.

However, the fallacy is a good diversionary tactic as it puts the accuser, who may now be under pressure to provide explanations on the diversion, on the defensive.

Up until December 2006, there were 31 cabinet-level ministries including the FCT Administration and about 42 ministers. The reforms of 2006 led to the merger of the ministries of Petroleum and Power into a single Energy Ministry, Water Resources and Agriculture into a single Agriculture Ministry, commerce with industry, the addition to steel development to the mandate of the Solid Minerals Ministry, the abolition of the ministries of Police Affairs, Communication, and Co-operation and Integration in Africa into larger ministries, works into transportation, and so on.

“This reduced the number of cabinet level MDAs to 21, but without a significant reduction in the number of ministers. The Yar’Adua and Jonathan administrations reversed these reforms, and now, we have some 30 ministries housing between 42 and 48 ministers.

OBJ merged the ministries when he was leaving. He worked very briefly with merged ministries.

For example merging of the ministries of Petroleum and Power into a single Energy Ministry is not good idea this time around. Each ministry has huge problems even bigger than an adminstration.

Running small government is good but Nigeria is like an almost a failed country that one is trying to revive. These are just accumulated problems even make bigger by adminstration of Obasanjo where El-Rufai served.